BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP! BEEP!
A long, strong, pale hand came up and slammed itself on the alarm clock, effectively cutting off the third snooze call that morning.
'Great', Sesshomaru grumbled to himself in his half-asleep half-awake state of mindless, bloodshot eyed grump inducing grogginess, 'just kill me already.'
"Oni-chan~!", a cute, high pitched voice giggled behind his door, "wakey, wakey~!"
"Yes, Rin", the oldest of the Taisho siblings drawled, ripping off the nice, warm covers over his body to throw them bitterly to the side, his voice gravely like a cobbled stone, "Wakey. Wakey."
Fitting, he thought, that it should be her to deliver his sleep the last ruthless blow.
April fifth, the date on his calendar read, somewhere above his desk—it was officially back to school today.
Joy.
"Sesshomaru! Inuyasha!", his father yelled from the kitchen downstairs, "Hurry it up boys, I made breakfast!"
Rin's giggles grew rowdier as she burst through her oldest brother's door, throwing herself belly first on his bed like a little flopping fish.
Sesshomaru caught her before she could bounce off again, and let her pull him into one of her tight hugs so she could swing from his neck.
"Daddy burned the soup again", she whispered conspiringly in his ear, "but he let me have natto instead~"
"How are you this energized so early in the morning?", her adoptive brother drawled, half heartedly attempting to un-weld her from his person, with little to no success.
"It's Rin-chan's first day of big girl school!", she squealed in response.
Well, it was Sesshomaru's last year of big boy school, but he certainly couldn't muster enough energy to care, much less celebrate.
The seventeen year old sighed—little kids were unreal.
Sure, Rin was only just now getting started, but senior year stalked her brother just beyond his bedroom door, patiently waiting to spring on him any second now and slap him with responsibilities and expectations.
This would not only be Sesshōmaru's final year of high school, but also the last little semblance he had left of his carefree youth.
After this, it'd be nothing left but the big leagues, and yet another inevitable step forward into adulthood.
Not that he was worried, of course.
"Oi, Sesshōmaru!", Inuyasha yelled from across the hall, all the way in his own room, effectively cutting off the oldest sibling's train of thought, "Sesshōmaru!"
The third year sighed again, long and hard, and naturally chose to ignore him.
Instead he stood up, and after gently de-suctioning Rin from around his neck so that she could land on the soft covers under her with a giddy inducing plop, he grabbed his towel.
"Don't cry if you fall", he warned the screeching sister when she proceeded to jump on the bed like some sugar induced hyena, before groggily making his way towards the bathroom.
"Sesshomaru! I know ya heard me, ya bastard!"
The oldest gritted his teeth.
Attempting—and almost succeeding—in grinding them until they pulverized into a fine, bright powder.
A certain half-wit, he wordlessly vowed, was already looking to get knocked out real good, real soon.
"OI! SESSHOMARU!"
"What the fuck do you want now, Inuyasha!", the seventeen year old snarled back—wincing and hoping at the last minute, that their innocent little baby sister had skedaddled on back to the kitchen.
"OOOOOH! ONI-CHAN SAIDED A BAD WORD!"
Sesshōmaru sucked in a loud breath.
'Fuck', he mouthed, slamming the back of his head on the tiled wall next to the shower door.
Their father was definitely not going to like that.
The third year really, really, hated mornings.
"Oh-ho man, you're screwed now!", his younger brother cackled, sticking his large obnoxious silver mess of a head from behind the bathroom door, much to Sesshōmaru's annoyance.
"Speak for yourself, dead meat."
Inuyasha snorted, pulling the damp towel wrapped around his hips higher up on his waist while barging the rest of his happy butt in.
"I got a favor to ask", he grunted in response, when his older brother sneered at the gall of him.
The fact that this twerp was already bathed and refreshed before he had even had a chance to pee yet, did nothing to brighten Sesshōmaru's mood.
"The answer is no."
Inuyasha sneered.
"You haven't even heard it yet, asshole!", he complained—flinching at a blur on the corner of his eye heralding the sudden presence of a pale set of knuckles ominously hovering over his head.
"Get out", Sesshōmaru hissed, and even though the younger of the two complied by backing up a couple of steps, he still socked him twice anyway, for good measure.
"The answer is still no."
"Come on, just give me a ride to school!", Inuyasha snapped, rubbing the new sore spot on the top of his head, "would it kill you to help me out one time?"
"I'd rather not find out."
Sesshōmaru ignored his half-brother's flabbergasted foaming at the mouth, in favor of opening the tap on his sink to at least splash some cold water on his face.
"Stop being a lazy nuisance and bike to school like a good little boy", he suggested, when he noticed Inuyasha hadn't stormed off as he wiped his face.
"I can't", the first year grumbled, glaring at him with as much hatred his amber eyes allowed, "I trashed it at the park, trying out stunts with Kōga"
Sesshōmaru snorted, "Unsurprising."
"Just give me a ride!", Inuyasha begged, "It's the first day of school—don't be a dick!"
Running out of patience, his older brother rolled his eyes in response, "take the bus", he gritted.
"No one can pay me enough money to go on that smelly old thing!"
Thin golden eyes continued rolling until they hit the ceiling.
It was true that the seven thirty bus en route to Her Lady of The Sacred Jewel was always the smelliest for some reason, but that wasn't nearly enough logic for Sesshomaru to throw the rest of this already shitty day away, by car pooling with his insufferable half brother—of all people.
"Then walk!", he snapped, grabbing the fifteen year old by his long messy hair to drag him out of the bathroom already.
"There's no way anyone can make that walk before the bell rings!", Inuyasha whined, jumping up to smack at Sesshōmaru's wrist in an attempt to get him to let go—"come on, just give me a ride!"
"Get your own car", his brother snarled, using his other hand to trap the offensive appendage behind the first year's back as he pushed him out.
"Ya think I wouldn't if I could?", Inuyasha spat, yelping as he was overpowered enough to be thrown over the threshold, "it's just one ride!"
"I said no.", Sesshōmaru snapped, swinging the door shut on his face with a loud slam.
"So you're really going to make me and Kagome walk all the way to school—during the hazing period?", the younger of the two barked, loudly pounding repeatedly on his door, "that's pretty fucking insensitive, even for a heartless douche like you!"
At the other side, Sesshōmaru banged his forehead on the cool mahogany wood, "shut up", he muttered.
'Why did you have to go and mention her?'
Before he could help himself, his mind reeled back to their last shopping trip—well, among other things.
Higurashi.
'Damn her!', the seventeen year old grimaced.
Higurashi who made him lose his purchase—Higurashi who got in a ridiculous fight right in the public eye—Higurashi who smiles, and laughs, and deceives.
Higurashi—Higurashi—Higurashi!
Couldn't she just leave him alone?
Sesshōmaru kicked the door in annoyance, backing off to return to his shower and hopefully cool his frustration.
He sighed—what was wrong with him all of a sudden?
Just one whole day with her and he was already going mental.
—Just one conversation with her and he couldn't stop playing it over, and over in his mind.
So what if she was carelessly feisty—or helplessly warm?
—Or lies through her pretty teeth, while twirling on rooftops when she thinks nobody's looking.
And that kiss. What was up with that kiss?
His hand came up to feel at his left cheek, where she had innocently pecked him.
Sure, she had established that it was only, 'just a thank you, you know, for today'
She had told him so, after all, as he dropped her off at the gates of her house that evening—while Inuyasha snored obliviously on the backseat of his car.
But somehow that hadn't stopped the surprised look on his face, or the tiny little flutter in his stomach.
And even though Sesshōmaru didn't like that feeling at all, that didn't mean he could stop it from getting to him—
"…and you don't have any idea how hot it gets walking to that hell hole with that damn uniform on. It should qualify as a form of torture!", Inuyasha's incessant blabbering mercilessly cut him right back to reality.
'Lovely'
Sesshōmaru didn't know what could possibly be worse, Kagome and her trappings, or his infuriatingly loud, and extremely punchable, idiotic little brother.
"Shut up already!", he barked, giving the door another swift kick—this one hard enough to spook Inuyasha, yet light enough not to cause any real damage.
Their dad would kill him if her were to ever break down a door…again.
"I'll drive you two to school", he finally acquiesced, with a bitter grimace and already feeling a migraine coming, "just shut up."
Pinching the bridge of his nose, the older teen's jaw clenched when it did nothing to ease the painful throbbing, "everybody just shut up."
This was already shaping up to be a very, very long year.
"Ah, so you are capable of waking up", Toga sniffed, greeting his second son while taking great pains to hide the violently charred eggs stuck to a still smoking pan behind his back.
"When's Tome-san coming back?", Inuyasha asked, rolling his eyes and snorting at his dad's pathetic attempt to discreetly dump the whole thing straight into the overcrowded kitchen sink.
"You can't cook for shit", he added, laughing when steam exploded off the pan as soon as the tap water hit it.
His father sighed, "not for another two weeks", he replied, dumping yet another singed towel into the overflowing trashcan besides him.
"We're gonna starve!"
"We're just going to have to be patient, Inuyasha", Toga reasoned, sending his son an annoyed look, "Tome-san's mother is very sick, it's only natural she takes some time off to help nurse her to health"
"Well, can we find another housekeeper while we wait?", the first year grumbled, stomping past the breakfast table—fully ignoring what vaguely resembled a full traditional Japanese spread, that his father had just slaved over—in favor of some cereal in the pantry.
"Use a bowl!", Toga snapped, nailing him on the back of the head with a random oven mitt he'd taken out earlier, for some reason, when he still somehow believed he could pull off his very own episode of Chopped, Japan.
"Where?", Inuyasha challenged through a mouthful of cornflakes, as he gestured to the messy kitchen, "where is this bowl you want me to use!"
"Only unrefined people eat directly out of the bag and into their mouths!"
"Keh", the teen scowled, "only you would call someone unrefined while only wearing boxer briefs at the table!"
Toga scoffed, gesturing at the frilly pink apron on his torso as if his kid was not only blind, but woefully ignorant.
"At least I know how to eat", he argued, "besides, this is a man cave and I can wear whatever I want in my man cave."
Somewhere in the other room, right by a loud blasting wide screen tv, Rin shrieked, "This is a fairy princess castle!"
"Whatever you say, pumpkin pie~", her father called back with a grin, then turned to glare at the intercom system before slamming his thumb on the white round button, "SESSHŌMARU! BREAKFAST—NOW!"
"…yeah well, then I can eat however I want in the man cave…", Inuyasha grumbled, still in his feelings as he brought the box back up to his face.
He choked as Rin stomped into the room sporting the fires of hell within her dark brown eyes.
"FAIRY. PRINCESS. CASTLE!", she warned with a mean growl.
"Honey bunch~", Toga cooed, placing a steaming bowl of rice in front of Inuyasha, and another right next to his oldest's plate, "lets use our inside voice—remember what we talked about?"
The little girl made a face as she pondered, "If Rin doesn't scream in peoples ears, daddy won't have to come to school again?"
"That's my girl!", the proud father praised, "now, why don't you put down those markers and go fetch your brother?"
Rin practically bounced, immediately dropping the fist full of sharpies she held on her color stained hands as she made a run for the stairs.
"ONI-CHAN~"
"Tome-san, really does need to come back", Toga admitted to a winching Inuyasha, who he noticed had covered his ears in wake of all the screeching, before bracing his bad back and reaching down to painstakingly pick up each marker with a sigh.
"I think we're running out of wall space for her to draw on"
The fifteen year old besides him swallowed the lump of rice stuck on his throat and nodded, making a show of checking his surroundings, "she scares me, pops"
"Me too, son", the actual adult and authority figure in the whole house muttered, subtly doing a precautious double take of his own, "me too"
"Can you put me up for adoption?", the first year pleaded.
"Don't be a brat", Toga chuckled, handing him an already cold cup of tea, "Sesshōmaru will calm her down—where is he anyway?", he asked, taking his own seat at the table.
Passivity turned to annoyance, "He better not be sleeping."
"He's probably still showering, since he's the only real fairy here", the second born son replied, chugging the drink in two seconds flat, only to regret it when he realized how painfully bitter it was, "—Gah! what the heck is in this?"
"Speaking of…", his dad questioned, ignoring the honest inquiry in favor of leaning over to sniff around him, "have you showered today, Inuyasha?"
"Yes!"
"Well there's a first", Toga teased with a well meaning chuckle, "then how about you go back upstairs and put on a real school shirt, boy!", he snapped, smacking the unsuspecting first year on the side of the head hard enough to make the teen yelp.
"If I can see that concert t-shirt under your blazer, your teachers definitely will—and I am not getting called at my office again to come pick you up, just because you don't like the uniform!"
"Ow! fuck!", Inuyasha hissed, slamming his chopsticks on the table, "stop telling Rin to use her words when you can't either!"
He was met with another smack, this time with the miso soup ladle.
"Cuss around your sister one more time, I dare you!", Toga warned.
"She's not even here!", his second born complained, rubbing his head with more friction than the older man though it necessary.
"Where the hell were you when Sesshōmaru was cussing up a storm upstairs!"
"Stop changing the subject" Toga scoffed, "and go change!"
"It's a hundred degrees outside, old man!", Inuyasha gritted, pushing his chair back as he stood up anyway, "I only have long sleeves left—do you want me to suffocate that bad?"
"Oh, no", his father tutted, unimpressed, as he nonchalantly picked off the charred pieces of what might have been an overcooked fish, "if only you could have had the chance to go back to school shopping this summer"
"Gnrragh!" Inuyasha snarled, finally stomping off in defeat, "why can't I just drop out already!"
Mr. Taisho shook his head as he filled his own cup with tea, "such charming children I have", he muttered with a sigh, just as his infuriated son made a point of slamming his bedroom door so violently it made the table shake.
"SESSHŌMARU!", he barked at the other one, "I'M NOT GOING TO ASK YOU AGAIN! HURRY UP!"
'I bet sweet little Kagome doesn't give her mother this much trouble'
…..
"But, mama—", Kagome glared as she pleaded, "these were the only ones they had left at the shop—it's not my fault that I'm a little bit taller than last year!"
"Higurashi Kagome", her mother scoffed, "do not give me that—'I'm taller this year'—mambo jumbo again!", she warned, "If you're taller this year, does it make any sense to buy skirts two sizes smaller than the ones you had last year!—ah?"
To prove her point, Mrs. Higurashi held up the offending fabric up to the light, to get a better look at it, "even Sōta can't fit into these!", she complained, "you know better than anyone that you bought shorter skirts when I specifically asked you not to!"
"Those were the only ones they had left!"
"Of course they were!", the older woman sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose, "why else would you wait until the last possible minute to buy them?"
Her daughter lifted a finger to counter her argument, but deflated instantly.
Well—Okay, fair—Kagome didn't have much to defend herself with there, and she knew it.
"How am I going to explain this to your teachers when they call me in for such blatant uniform violation?", her mother demanded, waving the offending skirt around as if it had robbed her at gun point after personally offending her, "when I was in school they'd hang us up on our ears if our hems didn't sit past our knees—poor Kanoko-chan, she bled so much she needed seven stitches. Seven!"
"Mama, please—they're not going to hang me up by the ears", Kagome huffed, rolling her eyes at her mother's clear dramatics, "worst case scenario, I'll get sent home or—
"Oh you'd like that wouldn't you! Free time at home!"
"Why are you being so silly?", the first year giggled, "come on, I'm in high school now—I'm almost sixteen, not some little kid! And anyway no one wears their skirts down to their knees anymore—even the teachers know that!"
"Maybe they'll turn a blind eye to some of the kids, but Kagome—", Mrs. Higurashi bit her lip, unable to face her daughters hopefully blue eyes.
"don't forget that you're there only because of a scholarship", she gently reminded, "It wouldn't be wise to stick out unnecessarily. I-I don't want you to have a hard time because of this—and you know we can't even afford the fines as it is…"
Just as her mother had feared and expected, the light in Kagome's clear sky blues, dimmed significantly.
"So what if I'm a scholarship student?", the teenager muttered, snatching the skirt back from her mom's softening grip, "I'm still part of the school, aren't I?"
Forced to relent, Mrs. Higurashi nodded, "Yes, and you certainly have every right to be there just as anyone else", she assured, reaching down to pat her daughter's cheek in that tenderly way all mothers do.
"And I know you're not a little kid anymore, Kagome—but, you are my precious daughter and its only natural that I worry over little things like short skirts and boyfriends—
"Mama!", Kagome cried, pushing her face against the fabric of the skirt to hide the blush sprouting on her cheeks, "enough with the embarrassing conversation, please!"
Mrs. Higurashi's light and amused chuckle did little to relieve the teen's anxiety, "what embarrassing conversation? It's only a perfectly healthy part of life—
"Ugh! Just because I wear a short skirt doesn't mean I have, or even want a boyfriend—enough already, Sōta's mom!"
"Hm, well that's not what Inuyasha said you wrote on your diary", the older woman giggled, amused at just how red her daughter's blush deepened.
Kagome inwardly cursed that traitor "friend" of hers to high heaven, "that was a violation of my privacy and you should be upset with him, not share in on the gossip—who's mother even are you?"
"Any kid who'll have me, I guess", Mrs. Higurashi shrugged good naturally, pulling her daughter in for a hug despite her reluctance, "Kagome, I've told you already, it's okay if you start having relationships as long as they're with nice young men, and you bring them over for oji-chan to meet"
Kagome nodded in response, if only to move the conversation along.
She really would just prefer to continue getting dressed in solitude than keep up boy talk with her mother.
It was just plain embarrassing to her, especially whenever they got dangerously close to the sex talk—and she had already endured that talk with her grandfather.
Who—by the way—uses crudely drawn stick figures on some random old sutras he once found lying around, as his visualization device…
The first year violently shuddered just remembering it.
Kagome could live a long, happy life if she never, ever had to go through that again.
"Well anyway, you're not getting out of this one so easily this time, young lady", her mother warned with a wagging finger, gesturing back to the long forgotten skirt.
"Fine", Kagome huffed, though still satisfied with the change of topic "what do you suppose I do then, exactly?"
"I suggest you figure something out", Mrs. Hugrashi shrugged, picking up the laundry basket she had barged in with, "wear some shorts under it, perhaps—I don't know, Kagome—but I will not be a young grandmother just because the tiniest breeze hits you under there and lifts that thing you call a skirt up in front of—
"Okay! OKAY!", Kagome snapped, struggling to pick up some dirty socks on the ground and slamming them on the basket just to speed up the process, "You got it! I'll wear undershorts—happy now? Great—you can leave now! Please!"
Mrs. Higurashi grinned, despite being nudged away from the room by someone who did not pay the bills in her house, "good girl", she teased, giggling as she was dragged past the door frame, "then, should I bring you the hello-kitty pair I washed for you last night?"
If anyone said parenting was not entertaining, it was definitely not Kagome's mom.
"Just get out already!", the frustrated teenager cried, throwing one of the plush animals by her desk at her mother just as the older woman closed the bedroom door with a cackle.
…
Meanwhile back at Inuyasha's house, Toga Taisho's dark bushy brows lifted in concentration as he spied on his oldest's reflection through the sitting room mirror, while fixing his tie.
He needed to be at his company in less than thirty minutes and was already running late, but how could he possibly go?—when none of his damn kids had made it out the door yet.
"Got everything you need, son?", he asked, watching Sesshōmaru fumble with his backpack for the third time that morning.
"Yes."
"Good, good", the older Taisho nodded, clearing his throat, "and, ah—that car of yours, does it have enough gas?"
"Yes."
"Good, good…"
Somewhere upstairs, what sounded like something heavy and hard, landed right on Inuyasha's foot, at least by tell of his agonized scream.
Rin, at one point near his general vicinity, was heard shrieking down the hall to get away from him.
"I TOLD YOU TO GET OUT OF MY ROOM!"
Ignoring the commotion directly above him, Toga cleared this throat again, "so, ah—I recently heard from your kendo teacher, he was very proud—
"This place is a pig stye", Sesshōmaru drawled, cutting through what he felt was needless chit-chat, "if no one's going to make the effort to pick up after themselves, you should at least hire somebody new to do the cleaning"
Any other father should have been taken aback by such a tone, from their own child no less—however Toga only sighed.
So much for attempting to have a civilized conversation with the damn boy, for once.
"Just make sure you make it to school on time", he gritted, checking his own reflection one last time while grabbing the suitcase resting on the hall table besides him, before heading towards the staircase.
"Rin-chan~" he called up, "Time to go to big girl school!"
Loud running hit the stairs, as the little girl stampeded down them faster than she should have ever been capable of.
"Yay!", she squealed, running past her wide opened armed father, in favor of barreling through the front door.
"You forgot your backpack!", Toga called after her with a tired huff, making sure to grab the bright pink, glittery monstrosity that was her leather bag.
"Inuyasha!", he then yelled up at his middle child, "be by the bus stop before the bus gets there this time—or so help me god!"
"I agreed to give him a ride to school", Sesshōmaru informed him nonchalantly, now carefully polishing the well groomed bamboo sword on his lap.
"Well, that's very…brotherly…of you", his father replied lifting a brow, actually taken aback for once.
The third year scowled,"You should get him a car already, father", he suggested, "otherwise he'll never leave me alone."
Toga's other brow joined its partner past his hairline.
"I will", he agreed, "when he makes good grades"
The teenager snorted, "don't hold your breath."
Ah!—Now there was that sibling rivalry Toga was all too familiar with!
The head of the family rolled his eyes—and to think that they were starting to get along for a second there.
"You know, Sesshōmaru. You could always tutor Inuyasha" he suggested, "as his older brother it's your duty to help him—
"Half brother", Sesshōmaru deadpanned, cutting him off, "and I don't have any obligations to him. So I'll ask you not to presume otherwise."
"Boy…", his father warned, nostrils flaring and completely unamused—It was much too early in the morning for this.
Despite his anger, however, he could only watch as his oldest child abruptly stood up from his seat without so much as another word.
Apparently Sesshōmaru had though so too, it seemed.
He merely picked up his schoolbag before making a show of strapping on his shinai to his back, and headed for the door before grabbing his car keys as he passed by the bowl at the entrance.
"Just tell him to hurry up", he muttered, "I'll be at my car."
Mr. Taisho heaved a very long, very worn sigh, and made to grab his own keys.
He supposed he couldn't blame this son for his adamant hostility.
Not really.
Sesshōmaru was the oldest, and because of that, he had been exposed from a young age, for far too long, to a toxicity he had not deserved.
—His mother's failed marriage.
—His stepmother's death.
And worst yet, out of all of them—he, Toga, had neglected to protect him the most.
It was his fault, and he knew every last choice, however minimal—however harmless—had caused an irreversible domino effect that would haunt this family for a lifetime.
But even then, Toga still hoped—still selfishly wished—that Sesshōmaru would swallow his pride and one day, at least, finally accept Inuyasha into his heart.
The capacity was there, anyone could see it just by looking at how much goodness Rin alone had brought out in him.
Why then, the father sighed, could he not extend some of that warmth to his own brother?
Inuyasha, after all, had no part in any of the guilt.
And no matter how different both their mothers were, it could not change that together he and Sesshōmaru were forever linked by blood, and should treat each other like the family they are.
—"Did I miss something?", Inuyasha asked, descending warily down the stairs as he swung his own worn backpack over his shoulder.
His father was pleased to see that he had indeed complied and changed into his proper school shirt, no matter how rugged and messy it still looked on him.
It was quite a contrast to his older brother, who's uniform was always pristine and meticulously well put together.
Though one might argue that Sesshōmaru was excessively pristine and meticulously well put together in all aspects.
One hard look from his father and Inuyasha sighed with a roll of his eyes, but nonetheless still begrudgingly tucked his shirt into his pants.
"Nothing at all", Toga grinned in response, ruffling the fifteen year old's hair and chuckling at the grumble he received in response, "have a good first day, my son—and behave"
How he missed the days when both his boys were little twerps who only knew how to depend and look up at him with childlike awe—back when all they wanted was to be just like their 'big, strong dad'.
"Don't mess it up!", Inuyasha protested in annoyance, pushing the large offending hand away from the pale birds nest he had the gall to call a hairstyle, "I spent all morning fixing it!"
The teen snickered at how his father pulled away as if he had been singed, while letting out another one of those melancholic sighs he was always expelling these days.
"Don't worry, pops", the second youngest of the Taisho pack assured with a smirk as he nudged him, "I'll behave"
"Liar", the father chuckled, nudging him back, "go, get out of here before Sesshōmaru leaves without you",he warned.
"Shit, he would!", Inuyasha cursed, pushing past Toga as the realization hit him, while hurriedly breaking into a run for the garage.
"…'you have a great day too, dad'…", the older Taisho mocked with a huff, his somewhat lazy high pitched impression admittedly inaccurate to how the first year actually sounded like.
—'Rude punk'.
Though Toga couldn't help but grin anyway.
Yes, all his kids were growing up at quicker pace than even he could keep up, but he'd be lying if he couldn't admit that he loved every little bit of it just as much as he loved them to pieces.
It was a true blessing just getting to watch over them, while helping guide them from time to time as they travailed through every new chapter life had to offer.
This was the true privilege of a parent, he realized, and one that he had long vowed never to squander again.
Still…
The middle aged man snorted, whistling a short melody as he too headed for the door, turning off lights and kicking aside toys as he went—that didn't mean he didn't deserve a nice, long, relaxing break away from it all every once in awhile.
He continued to hum blissfully while locking the front door from the outside, making sure to check it twice for good measure, before following the loud honking noice on his driveway.
"Rin-chan~", he warned, jiggling the keys in his hand in greeting at the six year old going ham on the steering wheel, "what did daddy say about locking yourself in the car?"
Almost indelible screeching hit his tired ears while he fought to unlock said vehicle every time she tried locking herself back in.
Toga sighed again.
'I really need a vacation'
A/N: Happy New Year! Let's hope this one's better than the last. But lets just not talk about that lol...Anyway, my new resolution this year is to write more consistently, so...next chapter to come real soon!
See ya then ^^
As always, I'd love to hear your thought so far. It really makes my day~
